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Study says aspirin helps prevent strokes in women

Posted: Tuesday, March 08, 2005

By Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. - In a stunning example of gender differences in medicine, a major new study found that aspirin helps healthy women avoid strokes but makes no difference in their risk of heart attacks unless they're 65 or older - the polar opposite of how the drug affects men.

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Aspirin is recommended now for both men and women at high risk of heart disease. Many doctors have assumed it also prevented heart problems in healthy women because of research showing it helped healthy men.

The new study "raises issues about the dangers of generalization," said Dr. Paul Ridker of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, one of the researchers.

The Women's Health Study was the first rigorous test of aspirin and vitamin E in women. It found that taking vitamin E did no good, adding to a large body of evidence that such supplements don't help and might even be harmful.

Results were presented Monday. They also were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine and will be in the March 31 print edition.

"This is a very important study with major public health implications," said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded it with the National Cancer Institute. Many of the authors have been consultants to aspirin makers, but the companies did not run the study.

Nearly 40,000 female health professionals 45 and older were randomly assigned to take either fake pills or 100 milligrams of aspirin - slightly more than the 81-milligram "baby aspirin" pills commonly sold - every other day.

After 10 years, aspirin users had a 17 percent lower risk of stroke and a 24 percent lower risk of strokes caused by blood clots - the majority of strokes - probably due to aspirin's well-known anti-clotting properties, researchers believe.